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Friday, January 29, 2016

CHINA DOLL: Getting Its Act Together As It Prepares to Close

Who would have thunk it? China
Doll, a play that has been ripped to shreds for both its content and the
performance of the superstar at its center, is now pretty much ready for prime
time – just as it is about to close.

Let’s take a look at the two chief complaints that have been
lodged against China Doll’s
playwright, David Mamet, and its star, Al Pacino, and see where things stand as
of earlier this week when I saw it. (These criticisms, by the way, did not
hurt box office receipts; the show’s lead producer recently announced that the
play has recouped its $3.7 million investment).

Complaint Number
One:That the play itself is barely
comprehensible.That was then; this
is now.Now it is comprehensible.It is about an aging high-power businessman
who is getting ready to bail out, marry his much younger girlfriend, and enjoy
his golden years with the lucre he has been gathering over a lifetime of
wheeling and dealing.Most of the play
consists of one-sided phone calls during which the businessman is trying to
wrap up loose ends.It also becomes
clear there are several vultures hanging around eager to pluck out his eyes
when it appears to them he has lost some of his edge.

David Mamet, who arguably has lost some of his own edge
since the brilliant days of Glengarry Glen Ross
and Speed-The-Plow, comes close to
that level of writing (great snappy lines that allow Pacino to show his
character’s business acumen as well as his ability to coerce or to turn on the charm
at the drop of a hat).Mamet also gives
us something new – the creation of fully-realized characters whom we only ever know
through Mr. Pacino’s one-sided conversations, yet who seem to be as real as if
they were onstage.

Complaint Number
Two:That Al Pacino has no idea of how
to play the role, and, at 75, he cannot sustain the performance.That was then; this is now.Now Pacino's character, Mickey Ross, is also fully realized, on
stage as well as on the page.This has
emerged as a Tony-worthy performance by Pacino. (Yes, he now is that good,
though conceivably Tony voters who saw the play earlier in the run may not
agree.)

In any event, Pacino brings the unseen and unheard
characters to life just by the way he shifts his voice and body language as he
talks to them on the phone.We know when
he is talking to or about his girlfriend, when he is talking to people involved
in selling him a new airplane, when he is talking to his attorney or to a
longtime “frenemy” of a business associate, even when these phone calls swirl
and spin together with such rapidity that Pacino comes close to presenting us
with the impossible phenomenon of the one-man overlapping dialog.And if he had trouble learning his lines in
time for the play’s opening, it is not surprising; it is a marathon of words he
must run for every single performance. If there remain prompters of any sort,
they are not visible, at least not from where I sat in the orchestra section.

[I pause here to mention that China Doll also has a director, and a very good one, too, in Pam MacKinnon (the Obie-winning Clybourne Park and a Tony-wnning revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). Her ability to shape things during all of the early mayhem of this production is not clear, given the two powerhouses she was dealing with in the playwright and the star.]

Although he dominates, Mr. Pacino is not entirely alone onstage. Christopher Denham
gives a very efficient performance as a very efficient assistant named Carson who is able to keep up with
Mickey Ross’s demands and provide him with the information he needs always to be
able to rattle off on a moment’s notice.Keep an eye on Carson as the vultures start to close in on Mickey. Indeed,
my only real criticism of the play lies with its very last scene involving the
pair of them. It is logical and in keeping with Pacino’s character, but it
comes off as a clumsy way of bringing things to a close.

But make no mistake about it.This is David Mamet’s play, and this is Al
Pacino’s star turn, and, now at the end of its run, they show they that they
have what it takes.If this should wind up to be Mr. Pacino’s swan song on Broadway, he has done himself proud. Too bad we had to wait so long for things to jell.

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